This category of PC hardware was fairly quiet in 1998, it wasn't until November and December that the big raucous debating was begun in our office as to which audio card offered the biggest improvements last year.

Early on Diamond was chillin like a villain, with their supremely capable Monster Sound3D PCI card as well as their uprated MX200 3D PCI card. Both offered amazing 3D audio immersion via Aureal's A3D sound API. Games like Unreal benefited greatly from A3D support, and made pinpoint location of an enemy by just their sounds alone rather easy.

Towards the end of the year Creative Labs decided to announce and introduce their vision of 3D audio immersion for the future, the Sound Blaster Live!. This powerful sound option upped the bar for both audio quality within the gaming world, as well as for the midi-sampling musician. The Sound Blaster Live was the first shot fired in the war for 3D audio supremacy, and it was quickly matched by the company that had introduced the first 3D audio card: Diamond Multimedia.

Called the MX300, Diamond's late 1998 audio card entry served notice that the company known primarily for video accelerators would not go quietly into the night due to some new competition from Creative. Sporting a powerful audio DSP created by Aureal, the MX300 suports a new version of A3D known as A3D 2.0. The improvements in spatial 3D representation are amazing within A3D 2.0, and the potential for all types of games offering support via a Vortex-2 powered audio card (like the MX300) is amazing as well.

Who won this heated battle of wills and high-powered firepower to be crowned as the King of 1998 audio? Regular Sharky Extreme readers already know the answer……

And the winner is...